


dance of mourning

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Marco Polo (TV)
Genre: Between Seasons/Series, Dark femslash week, F/F, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 14:06:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16348145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: The news of Jing Fei’s death comes to Cambulac late.





	dance of mourning

The news of Jing Fei’s death comes to Cambulac late. The death of a concubine is not as important as other matters at hand, and with the battle currently being waged against Xiangyang, even the spies the Mongols have in place cannot convey information back easily. It comes late, only when Cambulac has already been defeated and thoroughly beaten down. And Mei Lin receives it from Ahmad, the same source as most of her news.

“How did you know I’d want to know?” she asks. She does not receive much information, after all.

“They say the two of you were acquainted, if my information is good. And she helped to free your daughter, did she not?”

Mei Lin nods.

Ahmad does not have much more to say on the matter. When she was in bad spirits over the destruction of her city, he whispered sweet poison to her, treason against Kublai, and their bitterness mingled. But this loss is her own fault. Had she succeeded in killing the Empress, had Ling Ling not been stolen, she knows Jing Fei would still be alive.

He offers her his arms, his lips, his body as solace. She accepts because if she doesn’t, he will know just how much this has wounded her, and because he will be offended. Keeping him placated is a priority; without him, she is friendless.

He keeps her busy so she has little time to think until the next morning, when he is out working and she is left abandoned in his house. As a whore, she is used to being alone in the day rather than at night. Light more than darkness brings on her melancholy.

So Jing Fei is dead.

She twists her hands in the fabric of her clothing.

She thinks about their last meeting, brief and cheerless. Jing Fei delivered Jia Sidao’s message and Mei Lin was brief with her, too shaken by the message to rejoice in Jing Fei’s presence. Jing Fei left without even a kiss.

She thinks about how she left Jing Fei before that. Her last words to Jing Fei then were about protecting Ling Ling. Jing Fei followed through, certainly. But Mei Lin had not thought to tell her to take care of herself, nor to offer her any sweetness.

She thinks about days long before then, and what used to be. About how comfortable Jing Fei always felt in her arms, the warmth of her body which is now cold and most likely corrupted.

She does not quite cry.

(She will cry only weeks later, on the road with the young Master Polo. Late at night in one town he will bring a woman back to his tent—he will be tired and frustrated and seek the outlets many men do. She will listen to them making love and memories will break her. Later he will leave his tent to bid the girl farewell and he will come upon her with red eyes. He will give her a long look and offer her a drink from a flask he carries with him. It will turn out to be only water in the flask tonight, but it will soothe her throat, and he will leave her content. In the wake of such a small kindness she will cry all over again.)

She gets to her feet and begins to practice the dance Ahmad told her Jing Fei danced before meeting her end. She does not have a sword to practice with, but she still knows the motions. She has always been a better dancer than Jing Fei, but she imagines that Jing Fei looked far more exquisite at that moment than she does now. Jing Fei would have danced with all the last strength of her limbs, flinging her vitality into the breeze. Mei Lin dances as one already dead.

Soon she will be summoned by Kublai and given a mission that will end in a boy’s death, another person sacrificed to keep Ling Ling safe. She will ask whether she can bear the weight and find, again, that she can. But for now she allows herself to grieve what she has already lost.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for dark femslash week. I notice my entries get shorter and shorter :( oh well, this one is kind of plotless so it's not surprising.  
> Comments and kudos welcome! Or come talk to me on tumblr at convenientalias.


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